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This is the main reason I hope for RISC-V's success as well. When the ISA is easier, it is easier to write (JIT) compilers as well. Or debuggers, simulators, tr
by 0x000xca0xfe 4y ago
This is the main reason I hope for RISC-V's success as well.
When the ISA is easier, it is easier to write (JIT) compilers as well. Or debuggers, simulators, transpilers, everything really.
Imagine if RISC-V laptops were commonplace and students in compiler classes could write actually useful compilers for their own hardware!
When the lowest level (ISA) becomes more accessible, it hopefully leads to more competition and improvements in the layers above.
- tverbeure 4y agoYou’re not forced to use all instructions of more complex ISAs. E.g. isn’t there an equivalent ARM instruction for each RISC-V one?
- 0x000xca0xfe 4y agoGood point, I forgot A64 laptops are already widely available! I only worked with old ARM chips and remember that the instruction endianness and the thumb mode were particularly nasty, so maybe this is the reason I didn't like it :) But most other tools do need to support everything. E.g. the IAR debugger I used really didn't like the thumb mode. But somebody still had to implement it either way -- that time could have been spent on improving other parts of the debugger.
- tverbeure 4y agoI found the original ARM Thumb ISA very easy to use! But it’s been 27 years, time may have clouded my judgement. :-)